Linkage Wednesday: Surfer Blood, Yeasayer

Time to revive an old FOA feature: Linkage Wednesday!


1. Surfer Blood - "Take It Easy"

Take It Easy - Surfer Blood

I know everybody's tired of stuff that sounds like the '80s...or calypso...or the Beach Boys...but this song sounds like all of that and it's awesome. Surfer Blood will be visiting the Drunken Unicorn Feb. 19 with Turbo Fruits, Carnivores and Holiday Shores.

2. Being that I spent all of last week trying to say what I think about the forthcoming Yeasayer album Odd Blood (difficult because I'm still not quite sure what I think), stumbling across Stereogum's Premature Evaluation of the record today was kind of illuminating:

The toe-tapping "Rome" rattles forward, but in a less interesting way than the earlier tracks: It has rhythm and propulsion, but feels a bit empty. Yeasayer got folks hooked early on with "2080," a song that started floating around long before we even knew what the band looked like, so when those sort of harmonies disappear in favor of pure texture, a bit of the appeal drops-out, too.

Whew! I thought I was the only one that kept picturing this emoticon when I listened to certain parts of Odd Blood: :/



I mean, other parts of it completely rule. I'm sorta obsessed with "Madder Red." But there are bits that, to me, sound like a letdown. I feel like they're capable of more than that record. Dunno.

3. The A.V. Club posted a blurb about Vampire Weekend's Contra topping the Billboard 200 this week. Sure, we could actually discuss the ramifications of their popularity. But I'd rather point out that the article's writer Kyle Ryan captioned some scary video game illustration (which I should probably know about) with the line, "No, THIS guy would look psychotic in a balaclava." Hahahahaha, cheers Kyle.